Happy Sugar Life : Shio’s Miniature Garden

Returning to the disturbing life of Satou Matsuzaka we learn that adults are all perverted, most teenagers are sex crazed and perverted and Satou and Shio have to be the object of everyone’s attentions.

Don’t get me wrong nothing I said above made the episode bad it’s just one of those anime’s where you just feel everything is going to be shit all the time and of course everyone has to be falling in love with either Satou or Shio.

Thought the teacher story line, whilst it had a point to it and maybe even a longer drawn out point down the road, was unneeded or at least unneeded one episode after we had a adult abusing a teenager. Not that I think it should shy away from saying that some adults in positions of power over young adults can be terrible people but even Shio’s, I’m guessing brother, mentions that all adults are the same whilst in the room with the person who I’m guessing has kidnapped his sister and the guy who is now obsessed with his sister just from the missing posters he’s hanging out with. Both of whom are teenagers.

Whilst Satou’s friend isn’t doing anything wrong there isn’t really a character that is just… Normal in the series so far. Her friend Shoko comes close but her need to “play around with guys” is way too overplayed for me to claim her as normal, she’s coming across as sex crazed which is how I guess Satou’s past comes across. There was a interesting moment with the teacher where I feel we might have got a little bit of a explanation for why Satou is the way she is but we’re just being introduced to a bunch of fucked up people, not all who are going to have reasons for being fucked up, and it’s sad really.

I guess it’s all about the irony with the conversation between the girls about them quite liking the idea of sleeping with a teacher just for the teacher they were talking about to show up and within 10 minutes of showing up being the person stalking Satou. Like the one person who DIDN’T want his attention is the one he picked. I’ve got the point she’s meant to be really good looking/cute and there have to be these “barriers” so that she can do psycho things and as she doesn’t let Shio out, for good reason, it has to be her that is being stalked.

It just got too much by the end of the episode. Again it didn’t make it unwatchable or anything of the sort but I’m fast going to lose track of the train of people, their weird kinks and perversions and who is in love with who.

Which is a point after being sexually abused by a older woman, a storyline I didn’t really talk about in the last review but which I really liked because I feel male abuse victims at the hands of females isn’t something we see enough and as such so many people don’t see it as a problem so it was nice that they did it in the way that they did, he’s now obsessed with a picture of Shio that he’s seen and “little girls”.

Just the line that “little girls are so cute” or something like that, the way it was delivered and him burying his face into the poster made a cold shiver go up my spine.

By the end of the episode so much had happened and whilst I still have so many questions and its still fascinating to try and figure it out the biggest mystery now becomes Shio.

This vow thing that AGAIN I didn’t really talk about in the other review, Shio basically does wedding vows every night to Satou, isn’t something Satou made Shio do but is something that Shio’s brother and her seemed to have done in the past as well.

Who is Shio?

How did she end up with Satou?

How does she find this normal?

Whilst Satou might have a story to explain why she is the way she is I’ve found that within a episode Satou herself isn’t that interesting of a character. She’s defined by her need to be loved and the fact that she is overly loved by the wrong sort. Her story and development will be interesting to watch but as a character right now her mystery isn’t really that interesting.

Shio on the other hand is a mystery and a half and the fact that she happily goes along with this kidnapping is strange, the fact that she hasn’t mentioned a brother or WHOEVER it is that this guy is makes me wonder what messed up life she’s had. I dunno I just find it much more interesting to find out what her game is. How long have these two been together and is it long enough for her really to find it so normal to “love” her?

I guess what I mean is I GET Satou now. Whilst I don’t understand her, her actions or half of what is going on there is obviously a problem in her life that she’s fixing with her behaviour. That behaviour is wrong but I GET that. It’s the same as most murderers/kidnappers.

We then have Shio on the other hand who can’t be suffering from something like Stockholm syndrome unless she’s been missing for a whole bunch, there was a flash to a woman telling her that someone will come for her, but she also instigates a bunch of stuff like the vows, which we now know probably came FROM SHIO, and the kisses.

In a weird way I understand Satou. In no way shape or form do I get Shio who doesn’t act like a victim, doesn’t seem scared or worried and is instigating a bunch of weird stuff.

In all it’s pretty much my favourite series so far this season just because of the intrigue.